Enchanted Tales with Belle

Between long days of training, crazy 12 hour shifts and non stop busyness, I realized i never updated to say where Im working!! I got placed at Enchanted Tales with Belle!!!! :)

Im loving it SO MUCH I cant imagine being happier anywhere else!!! Being only a year old, and an extremely unique attraction, it is high energy and almost always busy, I love working there!!!
I get to do many different roles, some of the best ones are casting, where I select kids or adults to play certain parts in the show! I also work the portal room, where I deliver a fun spiel to everyone and open to the portal and send everyone through!

Watching the expressions on kids AND adults faces when i open the mirror portal never gets old... its an incredible feeling sharing something so magical with new people every day!!!

I also do the basic greeter/stroller positions and also do the Gatekeeper at Be Our Guest Restaurant! I work with incredible people and i get to watch Wishes almost everynight from the perfect spot... Im loving every minute of it.

although the hours are super late, its so worth it. Working in the Magic Kingdom is incredible, I love the constant busyness and that magic of it, especially being in Fantasyland. I couldnt be happier :)

My roomates are still wonderful, we get along so well, and life at Vista Way is great!!! I feel like this program has already topped my last one, and im not even a month in yet!!! everything is perfect <3

Home Sweet Home!

Well this is slightly delayed but i made it through check in!!! :) Ill start from the beginning….

So check in was wednesday, i met my roomates in the walgreens parking lot in front of vista and we walked over to vista from there! We got in line around 8am, later than we wanted but the line wasnt bad at all! The whole check in process at vista only took an hour and a half. For those of you checking in soon, make sure to have your DORMS paperwork printed and your two forms of ID!

The first thing you do is get your program guide, AKA the DCP bible! you will find this extremely helpful and will need it at almost every event for the first few days! Then from here, after a long wait, you find out where you are living… we got a 3 bedroom in Vista! Vista was our first choice, but we were hoping it would just be the 4 of us, but we got 2 random girls thrown in! (one which has not even showed up yet, so we wil be getting our 6th roomate on monday with the next checkin date) but the other girl is great!!! :)

From here you get your housing ID, they take your picture so make sure to look pretty :) then you move on top find out your work location!!! Keep in mind you may not find out EXACTLY where you are working, but simply a location. and drumroll please…I am working in….

ATTRACTIONS IN THE MAGIC KINGDOM IN FANTASYLAND!!!! :D

Im SUPER excited to be working here, although the hours will suck most of the time, the Magic Kingdom is the busiest park, and i love working when its busy :) not sure which attractions yet, but i will find that out soon!

At this point you also find out what time you are going to be going to casting. My time was 1pm, the time frame seemed to range from 1-3, and they provided transportation of course! also, some people have to do a drug test, so you find out your drug test time as well, depending on your role…it seemed like all attractions and lifeguards had to.

so from finding out your work location you hop around at little tents, where they talk about education and safety. From here you get to move your stuff in and wait to go to casting!

So at 1pm i headed over to casting. this process took almost 3 hours, it was long and boring, although seeing the casting building is always fun! Basically here you do 3 things, fill out I9 paperwork and talk about perks, get fingerprinted and sit down with a trainer. Sitting down with the trainer is most important, this is when you find out your traditions time and when your orientation is and of course, go over the Disney Look!!!

After casting you head back home, and some people get a free day from there or have a drug test etc… but the housing meeting was the next day, thursday one was at 11am and there was another in the afternoon but all housing meetings are held over in the commons! this is just a fun 2 hour meeting where you learn about expectations and all that fun stuff!!!

So that is the check in process!!! My traditions is this afternoon in a few hours, then my orientation for MK is bright and early tomorrow morning and is about 6 hours long! Im excited to find out where specifically i am working, i cant wait!!!

I am loving my roomates and loving vista way so much! although its not the best apartment space and cleanliness wise, i LOVE being so close to everything, it beats chatham and patterson by farrrr! :) And we got lucky and our building in vista is RIGHT in front of the bus stop and the pool is right outside our building as well! we have it MADE here!!!

Things are already settled here in Vista, we already made new friends that came over last night and we played games for hours and just hung out… this program is honestly the best thing ever, and its only just beginning :) I will do another update after traditions and orientation, so follow meeeee if you would like to keep up on everything <3

Twas the night before Disney....

THIS IS IT!

My last night here in Michigan.... cant believe the day has finally come for me to leave for the DCP...

its so unreal! Just yesterday i was saying, only 60 days left! and next thing you know, its HERE. im so excited to hit the road tomorrow morning with my dad. It will take us around 22 hours to get to Florida, and we will be checking into All Star Music monday evening!

We plan on spending the day in the Magic Kingdom on Tuesday, and then Check in is on wednesday!!! my dad plans on staying till thursday, it will be hard saying goodbye to him, but i will enjoy every moment ive got while he is there!

I honestly cant wait to set foot into the Magic Kingdom again, let alone be on Disney property!! I have missed it SO MUCH!!! and being able to road trip down there and see all the southern states i havent seen in yearsssss... its going to be amazing!!!

I cant wait to be all settled into Vista and start my new job and find out where im working!!!!! im ready for the memories to begin <3

ONE WEEK FROM TODAY!

I cant believe im this close... one week from today, i leave for the DCP once again.

It still hasnt hit me...although Im always thinking about it and talking about it, the fact that im actually going back and i will be there for 6 whole months...my head just hasnt grasped the idea yet.

Every part of me is excited to go back, but I know its going to be hard to leave so much behind. Family and friends, so many great friends I have made over the past few months... my puppy and of course my horse...
Makes it hard to leave, even knowing I will be home in June.

But there is so much to look forward to! I have amazing roomates that I cant wait to meet, one of which I already know very well from my last program, working in attractions again, being 21 and being able to explore Orlando even more.... seeing old managers and coworkers...

And simply being surrounded by Disney magic 24/7. I miss that the most. Hearing fireworks EVERY SINGLE NIGHT, going to the parks every day and living in this incredible dream everyday. I cant wait to be back HOME!

ONE WEEK FROM TODAY!!! <3

An eye opener

Well I got the email i was so impatiently waiting for...
and unfortunately, i didnt get the character performer role.

I was in shock. First off, it was a saturday night at 6pm...why would they send me my email then? And its not like i was planning on getting the role, but i was seriously hoping for it. I was pretty upset for the rest of the night, i even had a huge halloween party to go to (of course as minnie mouse) and i couldnt even truly enjoy myself there. I drank my pain away and eventually fell asleep.

When i woke up this morning, i had this brief moment where i hoped i had dreamed it. For a moment i hoped it wasnt real. But reality hit me like a wall and i didnt even want to get out of bed.

But then i really thought about it. Why did i want to be a character performer? It was to interact with guests and bring to life something that made kids or even adults happy. I wanted to be apart of that. But i realized that i can do that exact same thing in attractions, but i get to be MYSELF. guests will recognize ME for creating that happiness rather than some character. Portraying a character would be great, but then they will never know who I truly am.

I think back to my last program when a family sent in a picture of me pin trading with their son and daughter to my manager. That family said how thankful they were for that interaction and how much their kids loved my enthusiasm for pin trading. i would NEVER get that as a character. I would be filling the shoes of something that many other people did. I would be blending in. Being something thats expected of me. Being something im NOT.

In attractions i get to create magical memories as myself, and there is nothing better than that. and i get to pick up those AWESOME parade shifts and maybe even fantasmic shifts if they still do that!!! :) and i have a feeling that my interviewer has an AWESOME location chosen for me to work at. I have Faith :)

I belive God has a plan for me. There is a reason for everything. Maybe it will be something as simple as in attractions i will have this incredible experience with a guest. something life changing. Or maybe i will meet some managers that will lead me to a full time position i wouldnt have gotten if i was in entertainment. Who knows. But I know theres a reason.

Now im sure i will audition again, because i still believe it would be a fun opportunity. And if i made it until the very final cut of my audition, obviously they liked me and there is someone i could be. BUt they just didnt have the openings or someone else out danced me. And that wont stop me from trying again, and if its meant to be, its meant to be. :)

and as today marks 70 days until i leave for DIsney, i feel wonderful. although occasionally my stomach drops when i think about losing the entertainment position because of the overdrawn excitement from hearing back, i just remember that now I get to make the memories, not some character. I get to be the one to make a difference and i dont have to hide myself behind a character to do it.

And out of the 50,000+ that applied for the entire program, i am one of the FEW thousand that get the opportunity to do the program, let alone to be doing it for a second time! I couldnt ask for more than that. :)

Thankyou Disney, for opening my eyes <3

Diary of an impatient girl.....

I need to confess....

I am STRAIGHT UP FREAKING OUT.

Character Performer acceptances have been rolling out for 2 days now, as well as declined emails... and i havent heard anything!!! I havent decided if this is good or bad yet....

SO many people seem to be getting accepted and everytime i think... thats another spot filled.... i just want to know SO BAD.

2 days ago it started with mostly people under 5'2" getting accepted. This morning started the same but as the day went on taller people would get accepted with a few super tall guys here and there. It made me think they are maybe going by height sort of... and im at the top! A couple late acceptances went out tonight to some taller girls, so i have my fingers crossed i will hear something tomorrow now that so many of the shorter people are out of the way!

Im trying SO HARD NOT to get my hopes up... because if i do and get a NLIC email... im going to be beyond heartbroken. You'll see me at branns downing margaritas tomorrow night to take away the pain LOL

I just need to remember that they have declined some people and im not one of them so far, and thats good! they need to spread out the acceptances throughout several days, they said so in the blog update below!!!

So they are testing my patience. I get it. But im going crazy here!!! Im praying tomorrow is the day... i have hardly anything going on, so im going to have to do my best to keep busy... and try not to FREAK THE F OUT everytime my email goes off.... :)

So send my wishful thoughts and prayers as i await my answer.

I dreamt it... so I can do it. Walt DIsney said so himself :) <3

Disney Entertainment Audition!

O.M.G.

SO I went to the character audition in Ann Arbor today...

AND IM MADE IT THRU THE FINAL CUT

SERIOUSLY cant believe it. I know it doesnt necessarily mean anything, but just that they are considering me out of all those people that showed up...blows my mind!

Here's what happened:

So i got to the audition an hour before check in started, which was at 10:30. Thankfully the opened the doors and let us in at 10 to get settled. From there we got measured and put our basic info down like name and email. this process took well over a half hour because there was about 130 people there!! 

We were scheduled to start at 11, but they waited for the last few people to check in, so we started at 11:15ish. All 130 of us were cramed into a small room and this is where the leader told us the basics. Such as what being an entertainer at DIsney World means and that they are only looking for certain spots to fill so they encourage you to try out again if you dont make it!

From there we learned the first dance. Im not going to give away details, but its just a simple dance with a mini animation before hand :) easy stuff! we practiced it over and over, then they split us into two groups of 60. My group went first

So in rows of 4 we performed the mini animation and dance, moving across the floor toward the judge. I made sure to ham it up as MUCH as possible, dancing with huge movements and giving it my all! it was one shot, so i made sure to make it count! after that we left the room and the next 60 did the dance. once they were finished we all got back together in the room. This whole process took just over an hour from when we started at 11:15.

From here he explained a little more about being a character performer and basically told everyone to not be sad if they didn't make it. he said they expect to see 2,000 people this season alone, and there are only around 150 spots. From here he read the numbers....

i was number 20 so i knew my pain would be over quickly. I figured with my height and build, i would not be chosen....but when he called my number I had to try so hard to keep from crying. i was SO EXCITED that they considered me to move on. All the friends I had made unfortunately didnt get to proceed, so as i stayed while the majority left, i suddenly knew no one. The group of 130 now shrunk to 40. NOW i was nervous.

Once  again, I don't want to reveal to much but I had to do a huge animation sequence, something they have never done before in any audition, so we were the guinea pigs. Lets just say you had to truly take on the persona of a character and animate your HEART out. They had us do it again and again and would give us critiques on what to change or add. Then we learned another dance, MUCH harder than the first. This one consided of complicated dance steps that i was horrible at. But the choreographer ensured that it wasnt about the dance, it was about your personality and shining even when you failed the dance.

So we practiced the animation and dance a few times and eventually got dismissed and would return in groups of 5 to officially audition. I was the second group to go, and i was nervous.... but yet not. I knew if i was myself, there was nothing more i could do. They would either like me or they wouldnt! so i gave it all i had, and made sure they wouldnt forget my face :) we did the animation once, and dance twice afterwords. Then we were dismissed and allowed to go home! Some people where called back for a question, but he said that people that were finished could get it and the people called back may not. The call back was just to answer a simple question or take another picture for face or something like that. He said if he knew he wanted you, there was nothing else to ask so thats why he didnt call some people back. 

Walking out of there I felt SO WONDERFUL. It was well worth the 2.5 hour drive.... and to know im in the running... i cant handle the wait!!! He said they had one week of auditions left, and then they would start sending out emails, and we would hear back no later than Nov 15.... this is going to be a longggg wait. 

Im trying not to get my hopes up, because a lot of people make it to the end, just to not make it... but at least i can say i made it that far!! My fingers are crossed that ill get that email....to be "friends" with someone would be a dream come true... i cant imagine being given the opportunity to bring characters to life

it wouldnt get any better than that :) so ill just be over here, impatiently waiting for a response from casting.... hahaha

If you can Dream it you can Do it <3